Pete & Geri Scazzero

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On May 3-4, New Life Fellowship in Queen, NY, hosted the Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference. Nearly 300 pastors, leaders and spouses attended from over 10 nations and 25 states to hear rich teaching on Emotional Health and Contemplative Spirituality. The Pre-Conference on Marriage was held on May 2. Click here to hear Pete's summary.
Pete recently did an interview with Preaching Today were he shares some insights on the importance of becoming an emotionally healthy preacher. Click here to read the article.
Pete and Geri recently spoke a the Hawaiian Island Ministry Conference in Honolulu. Click here to listen to their talk on the importance of Emotional Heath for church leaders.
Geri had a fantastic weekend speaking to a gathering of Evangelical Pastor Church pastor wives in Colorado around I Quit and Emotionally Healthy Skills in October, 2011. She will be piloting our Emotionally Healthy Skills with a group of Evangelical Free leaders in Minnesota the second week of November as we prepare to release EH Skills to Loving Well 2.0 next March, 2012.
11/08/11

Top 10 Books that Have Influenced my Life

I was asked recently the following question: “What, besides the Bible, have been the top 10 books that have influenced your formation in Christ and leadership?” The following is my answer. They are not in order of importance or rank.

1. Let Your Life Speak. Parker Palmer. Filled with powerful insights integrating faithfulness to God to faithfulness to your true self.

2. New Seeds of Contemplation. Thomas Merton. Written out of years of solitude and silence. Many of his short chapters need to be prayed in a lectio divina fashion, not simply read.

3. Under the Unpredictable Plant. Eugene Peterson.  Brilliant exegesis and application of Jonah to pastoral leadership and the reality of serving Christ with sinners in Nineveh rather than live in the “ecclesiastical pornography” of illusions.

4. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Written in the 1850’s, it remains one of the most powerful accounts to understand racism and slavery in America. Transformed my understanding of the race issue in the USA.

5. The Dark Night of the Soul. John of the Cross. No writer brings a healthy integration of loss, suffering and spiritual formation like this 16th century Carmelite.

6. Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Benedicta Ward.  I have been meditating on these sayings for almost ten years now as part of my time with God.  Require meditation

7. Generation to Generation. Ed Friedman. A seminal book on systems thinking, written by a rabbi, essential to leading any church or organization.

8. A Grace Disguised. Jerry Sittser. The best book on the theological nuances/complexities of grief and loss. Written out of indescribable loss and tragedy.

9. The Making of a Leader. Bob Clinton. Well-researched and written. I have returned to his insights again and again for perspective on how God makes leaders over the long haul.

10. Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean. Peter Winn. This book enabled me to understand the global, historical and cultural dynamics of skin color and how they inform our churches, politics, cultures and families.

Runner Ups:
Return of the Prodigal Son. Henri Nouwen. This book has brought be back, again and again, to the riches of grace in the gospel like no other.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X.  Alex Halley.  Forthright and in your face.
Sabbath. Wayne Muller. Devotional, rich, filled with insights.

Thoughts? Additions? Comments?

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  • http://kevinmartineau.blogspot.com Kevin Martineau

    The three top books that have impacted my life are:

    Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (your book revolutionized my life Pete.:)
    The Me I want to Be by John Ortberg
    The Search for Significance by Robert McGee

    Merry Christmas Pete & Geri!

  • Anonymous

    I highly recommend “Hind’s Feet on High Places” by Quaker, Hannah Hurnard. This is an allegory about the ways that God transforms our soul by observing crippled, stuttering “Much Afraid” in the family of “Fearings” whose name is changed into Grace and Glory at the end of her journey. Her Beloved, the “Shepherd”, guides her, with her companions “Sorrow” and Suffering”, to the High Places through adventures and challenges and confrontations with her relatives, “Craven Fear”, “Pride”, and “Self-Pity.” In the sequel all her relatives (parts of her self) are transformed and have their names changed, as well. This book helps our dark nights of the soul to make more sense and allows us to see the creative, loving hand of God in our times of perplexity and pain.

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